Analysis of intra-urban traffic accidents using spatiotemporal visualization techniques

Road traffic accidents (RTAs) rank in the top ten causes of the global burden of disease and injury, and Iran has one of the highest road traffic mortality rates in the world. This paper presents a spatiotemporal analysis of intra-urban traffic accidents data in metropolitan Shiraz, Iran during the period 2011-2012. It is tried to identify the accident prone zones and sensitive hours using Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based spatio-temporal visualization techniques. The analysis aimed at the identification of high-rate accident locations and safety deficient area using Kernel Estimation Density (KED) method. The investigation indicates that the majority of occurrences of traffic accidents were on the main roads, which play a meta-region functional role and act as a linkage between main destinations with high trip generation rate. According to the temporal distribution of car crashes, the peak of traffic accidents incident is simultaneous with the traffic congestion peak hours on arterial roads. The accident-prone locations are mostly located in districts with higher speed and traffic volume, therefore, they should be considered as the priority investigation locations to safety promotion programs.